Now Now, Katie-Cakes
by morethenwords122
Summary: Kate's always known that there was something different about her… something wrong... Part 2 of Wicked Series
1. Chapter 1

1

Kate's always known that there was something different about her… something _wrong_. She could tell from the hard, cold glint in her daddy's eyes when he would looked at her whenever he thought she didn't notice. His features set in a deep, contemplative scowl with his lips pressed in a thin white line, his whole aura radiated disappointment, fear, and _rage_. Almost like, he was truly afraid that the love of the Lord didn't quite fully live inside his daughter's heart.

He always prayed harder and preached the Lord's way louder and longer at church when he had _that_ look on his face… those flickers of silent rage that were also stamped across his face in those moments of disappointment and shame. That was when she truly feared her father…

She knew that on those nights, in those moments, when her ears would ring with the word of the Lord, that her father's naturally calm voice would still be swirling violently around in her head when he beat her. His beatings would be swift, harsh… and painful… As he loomed over her, his body tense and his breathing erratic in the dead silence of her childhood home, his precious Bible would become splattered with droplets of her blood as her brother and mother looked on, with shame and resignation skittering across their faces. That was when Kate knew that she was the enemy, the _wrong_ doer in her family.

Her sweet and gentle father was a monster because of _her_ … and only with _her_. He was never like this with Scott, their mother, or the church goers, who listened earnestly as he spoke softly and lovingly of their Lord and Savior. He was only mean and violent with her because she needed to be taught 'the love of the Lord' hard, as he would say.

"Bad little girls like you need to be taught with a bit of a firmer hand," he had growled at her, his teeth bared and his breathing shallow the one time she had once cried about how unfair one of his punishments had been. He had the same look on his face as he stood over her now, his hair wild and his footsteps heavy.

He paused briefly, his whole demeanor changing back into the caring and loving father that she knew, pulling his hair back from his face as he asked, "Now, now, Katie-Cakes… What have we learned?"

She sobbed silently, her whole body visibly shaking with her unshed tears. She was still afraid that, if she showed anything but defeat and submission, he would begin to work on her again in earnest. Sighing, she wiped the trickling blood away from her nose with the heel of her hand, smearing it onto her pink lips, tasting the salty cooper of her blood on her tongue as she licked it away.

She said nothing as he stared down at her; there was nothing to say. She learned a long time ago not to offer a reply… because there was no right one to his question. He would just start beating her again for something different that she had done 'wrong' next week. It was just best to keep quiet.

"Well…" He cleared his throat, looking down at his blood stained Bible. "You get to bed now, sweetheart… We all have a big day tomorrow," He said softly, bending down to her eye level, giving her a soft kiss on the cheek. She couldn't help the way her whole body jumped, than stiffened, at the unexpected touch. Well, it wasn't so unexpected since he was always gentle with her after one of his beatings… but it still hurt. It still hurt to know that it just wasn't in his nature to be cruel… that _she_ was the one that brought it out in him.

It was also on those nights that her brother would come into her room, carrying a pack of ice as he silently sobbed. His whole demeanor was weak and looking for comfort that she couldn't offer. He would climb into her bed and hold her, pressing the ice pack onto whatever swollen limbs she had at the time, as he promised her that when he was big enough and strong enough to fight back that he would never let their dad touch her again. It was in those moments that she tried her hardest not to cry. She was supposed to be the big sister. She was supposed to protect him from any harm… But how _could_ she when the person that needed to be saved from was their father? And, besides, he doesn't need any saving… at least of all by her. He wasn't the one that their father hated.

 **TBC...**


	2. Chapter 2

2

"Miss Fuller?" A voice whispers above her, friendly and soft like an angel, making her head feel light and airy. It's melodic and magical, ebbing away at the shooting pain coursing through her body, relaxing her tightening muscles. She forces herself to listen as the voice calls to her again amongst the loud booming rocketing through her head; the soft sound calling to her against the tidal wave of aches all over her body, the light calming the harsh feelings flowing through her. The voice calling to her is like a beacon of hope, a balm to her troubled soul making her feel warm and _wanted_ — and, for a split second, she thinks that this voice belongs to God… that he was finally calling her home. She willingly follows the musical voice into a bright light, excited for what awaits her in heaven.

But when she finally opens her eyes, the spell is broken, sending her crashing back to earth with a pop as she is blinded by the fluorescent lights waving in and out of her line of vision. She realizes immediately that this is _not_ heaven, and that the voice that was calling to her was _not_ God. She was in a hospital and a checkerboard cast encased her left arm and leg. The IV's hooked to monitors that are regulating her heartbeats and morphine intake are trailing up and out of her uncased arm, like chains shackled to hold her in place, making her want to atone for her sins as if it was judgment day… and the soft voice she thought had been God, actually belonged to a short, but stocky, Mexican Ranger who smiled softly at her.

And then, like everything else, the reason she's in the ER comes crashing back to her harshly, making her gasp in pain. The tires screeching against the asphalt. Collision against metal, scraping hot against her porcelain skin as thick, hot droplets of blood begin to pool around her, wetting her hands with _their_ blood… and sin. And the yelling, so much screaming… Oh, God. The screams.

She sobs as she remembers… another jolt of agonizing pain courses through her even as the memories fill her mind. She sobs harder as she recalls everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours. She was having a full-on panic attack now and the look on the officer's face is a wince of extreme discomfort… and she realizes that he's frightened. She wonders if he's afraid _of_ her or _for_ her. She's not sure, but she feels badly for making him feel that way.

She would never want anybody to be scared. She wants to apologize for making him uncomfortable, for making him feel scared… but all the words die on her tongue and all that comes out is a choked sob.

"Miss Fuller…?" The man asks softly after she's cried for a while, deep concern lacing his soothing voice. The change in his tone startles her back into the present. He peers closely at her face, and her breathing becomes erratic as she becomes aware of his closeness. Years of abuse conditioned her to be wary of male proximity.

"Stop crying, please…" He requests, wiping the tears from her face. She can tell that he is ignoring the way she flinches every time he touches her face. "You're all right now, Miss Fuller… Don't cry anymore…" He smiles brightly at her, and she can't help the small smile that crosses her face too.

"Kate," she says a moment later, her own voice hoarse from crying.

He frowns. "Miss?" Confusion spread across his face.

"My name's Kate," She repeats, wiping away the tears he missed. "Mrs. Fuller's my— _was_ my M-mom's name…" she stutters.

"Okay, Kate…" he smiles again, taking note of her quick save when she mentioned her Mother. Clearly she understands the situation, and why he's here. But he stalls before pointing to the star hanging off his denim jacket. "I am Mr. Gonzalez…" He taps his star for emphasis. "Or Ranger Gonzalez, if you want to get official… but please don't; makes me feel old," he quips.

She laughs a little at his attempt to relieve the tension before her face turns somber again. He also becomes serious. "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

She shakes her head. "No…" she croaks.

He nods his head, pushing one of the plastic hospital chairs from the hallway up to her bed, sitting as he pulls his notepad and a pen from his jacket pocket.

"What do you remember, Kate?" he asks, his voice professional and stern. "What do you remember about the crash?"

* * *

"Shattered glass," she tells Ranger Gonzalez is what she remembers. "There was a collision and broken pieces of metal were flying everywhere, tearing my clothes and my skin… But after that, I don't remember much of anything," she says as he writes it down in his notepad. "I blacked out… from the pain, I guess."

She's telling half lies to him in her interview, and _immediately_ feels bad about it. She really likes Mr. Gonzalez and Daddy had always told her and Scott that lying was really bad, a mortal sin that would send you to Hell… but she just can't find it in herself to be truthful about it. She can't tell him everything, despite how nice and personable he is. It's way too jumbled up in her mind, all out of order and blurry. It seemed like sometimes she remembers it far too well, and then other times it's as though she remembers far too little of the event for it to actually warrant discussing the matter. But whether or not she remembers everything right, it's what she _does_ know to be fact that she decides to keep mum about… What she _knows_ is for her only. She can't ever tell anybody else. They would never understand.

She can't find a way to describe how it had seemed like there were a million of pieces of jagged, sharp edged glass littering the pavement below her as the car tipped over, the glass cutting up her hands and spilling trickles of blood onto her new Church clothes. She had smeared her bloody handprints across the leather of her parents' Plymouth Voyager's backseat, glass digging into her palm as her vision became bleary and hazy with an edge of darkness as she tried to focus on her surroundings, ignoring the loud and resounding boom that echoed in her head from the collision.

She couldn't seem to keep her line of sight in one place and she was dizzy from her eyes rolling into her head. Every time she tried to steady her eye sight and stop the mind boggling spinning long enough to open her eyes wider, a stinging stab of pain swept across her eyelids, forcing her to shut her eyes and her vision to blur with darkness once again.

For a tiny, but frightening, moment she thought that she was going blind due to the enormous amount of pain her eyes were causing her, but after a while the pain had finally subsided into something bearable. When she had felt like her eyes weren't going to roll into the back of her head anymore, she opened her eyes… and wished she hadn't.

Suddenly everything within her field of vision had lit up like bright Technicolor, even the blood that had splattered onto her blouse seemed brighter than it really was… and then, like a sharp slap to the face, she remembered what had happened…

Her father had been yelling at her about something she had supposedly done. He had been yelling so loudly and staring daggers at her so intensely that he had missed the important fact that the light at the intersection had turned red… and the equally vital detail that a huge semi was coming right toward them… Unlike her father, it hadn't missed.

She hadn't missed how Scott's mangled face lay against the hard cement, his nose broken so much that the bone was sticking out, blood leaking from his face… finger's twitching. He was dead. She hadn't missed how her mother's neck had twisted, snapped, and rotated into an odd and freighting angle, her eyes wide open in terror. Kate could tell that, like with Scott, her mother was dead.

Her father… her father had…

Kate shakes her head, brought back to the present by deciding to repress that memory. She isn't ready for that… She doesn't really _want_ to remember how her father had taken his last breath… or what he had said. Maybe she never will… and she's completely fine with that. Some things are just best left alone.

* * *

The weeks that follow the accident pass by in a blur. Ranger Gonzalez and his family are the only visitors she has during her stay in the hospital… but they visit often. None of her aunts or uncles comes to see her even once, and she's fine with that. She never much liked her relatives.

But Mr. Gonzalez visits her almost every day. Sometimes he brings his daughter with him, cradled in one of his arms, as his wife snuggles into the other, smiling at Kate. He's always there… no matter what… even when he has to work late and comes in the middle of the night. She always wakes up to find he's fallen asleep holding her hand on those nights. He'd been there for the fading bruises and the broken bones as they healed and mended.

Her father's side of the family was suing the semi driver's family for negligence and Kate has been ordered to testify. She cringes as Ranger Gonzalez tells her about the subpoena requiring her to appear in court in the next few days. She really doesn't want to relive any of what happened, let alone talk about it in court, in front of relatives who always seem to hate her as much as her Dad had… and she tells Mr. Gonzalez as much.

He was there for her right as her release date nears and the trail date was approaching upon her as well. "I can stow you away off to Mexico way," he jokes teasingly, "Give you a few hundred dollars and make you survive in the Wild West."

She smiles, giggling. She's gotten use to Mr. Gonzalez's brand of humor; the way he teases her is odd and almost child-like, and some of the things he jokes about don't make much sense to her most of the time, but she doesn't care. She just likes his company despite the bad jokes; he's nice to her and patient. His family is probably one of the few good things to come out of her ordeal. None of them ever berate her when she's cranky after a long night of nightmares; they're only sympathetic. They offer help to ease the stress of her generally bad days when it feels like the pain in her heart is never ending as well as in her body, and Kate is absolutely in love with Ranger Gonzalez's baby girl.

But there's something about the way he tells this particular joke that makes her believe he would really do that for her, and her heart warms a little at his suggestion, but she shakes her head. "You'd lose your job," she says simply. She'd never put Mr. Gonzalez in a position where he'd have to choose between taking care of his family or helping her escape over something as stupid as this. She'd somehow inexplicably earned he's and his family's trust in the last few weeks; she'd bonded with the Gonzalez family like glue, and she is not about to let anything jeopardize that stability. So she can suck it up and deal with this obstacle in her life like the big girl that she is.

Ranger Gonzalez loses the mirth from his voice as he says, "I would help you leave Texas in a heartbeat if you asked me." He whispers firmly, "I would anything for you."

"I know," she says sadly, zipping the suitcase that is full of the clothes Mrs. Gonzalez had lent her during her last visit. "That's why I'll never ask you to."

* * *

The trial passes by much like everything else in her life has lately—in a blur. She speaks about what she remembers—which is still not much of anything—and before she knows it the ruling has been made on their case, and the judge declares that the Fullers' accident was… an _accident_.

"It's nobody's fault," the judge says firmly, looking at her glaring relatives to make a point.

The driver had a very long history of heart problems. He simply had a heart attack at the wheel and, if he had been alive, he would never have hit them… but Kate doesn't fully believe that. The judge is right; it isn't the fault of the driver or his family. It's hers.

* * *

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Miss Kate," Deacon Hilliard says after the verdict, his calloused hand resting on her shoulder lightly.

She flinches violently and moves away from him. She still hates to be touched. She guesses she always will… but he doesn't know that. She tries to school her face into a look of bewildered innocence, faking being startled and caught off guard by his presence to spare his feelings. Deacon Hilliard had always been real good to her family; he'd always been extra nice to her and she briefly feels guilty for rejecting Mr. Hilliard's comfort, but she just can't stand the thought of his hand touching her.

Thankfully, he doesn't seem to notice her discomfort. "Your family were real good people." He frowns, shaking his head. "Real tragedy…" He mutters and Kate just nods her head, wishing he'd go away.

He nods back. "Hopefully, we'll all see you at church next week," he says blandly, smiling.

"I don't know…" She trails off, the idea of going to church after everything… after her father… The thought of being there just makes her feel like vomiting violently across the courtroom's wood floors. She just can't believe in _that_ part of her life anymore, not after everything she's been through lately.

"I know that you may need time, Kate…" he says, taking her hand and, once again, she has to will herself not to break away from his hold. "But God's always there for us during our time of great need, my child."

Is he? Is he really there for her? Because the God she grew up believing in would have never have let this happen to her, never allowed her to have the memories that were now burned into her brain… The God she had once loved would have never have let her father say…

"I'll think about it," she says.

* * *

Kate's not surprised when none of her relatives are willing to become her legal guardian.

"She's too much work!" Aunt Karen sneers, turning her nose up at the idea of having Kate living with her at her home in England. "Too uncontrolled for my way of life. Jacob could never rein her in…"

Kate just shrugs at Aunt Karen's comment. She always thought that Aunt Karen was a snobby, rich bitch anyway. She'd rather blow her own brains out than live in that uppity, high society lifestyle.

"We don't have the money to take her on at the ranch," Aunt Mary and Uncle Tex answer at the same time, barely looking at her. She can tell that they're ashamed by their low social standing, and Kate's okay with their explanation. She never met Mary and Tex before today, and she'd rather not live with complete strangers… Unlike Aunt Karen, they didn't belittle her. She respects that. She's a little bit shocked by Uncle Phillip's and Aunt LeAnn's adamant refusal though.

She had always thought that they liked her. She used to love spending summers at their lake house when she had been younger and Scott had been just a baby. Unlike Aunt Karen and her son, they had always been nice to her when she visited them. They were her favorite relatives that came to visit them. Well, they were the most tolerable, Uncle Phillip had a tendency to be annoyed by her easily and Aunt LeAnn kind of kept her distance from her, if possible… But she's not too upset over it. A part of her kind of expected their abandonment. Her cousin Mildred, their daughter, kind of ruled their lives and was a lot like Aunt Karen in one way… she hated Kate like fire hates water. And Kate's pretty sure that their refusal was influenced a lot by Mildred's input.

She's not surprised by any of their refusals to take her. They always liked Scott better, even though he was adopted and Kate was their own flesh and blood… They just couldn't stand her, and she got that. She could hardly stand herself on a good day.

Kate had accepted that it was her fate to be a foster child, when Mr. Gonzalez suddenly walks through the door, his wife in tow, and demands that Kate be placed into their care.

Now that does shock Kate.

 **TBC...**


	3. Chapter 3

3

Of course, Aunt Karen puts up a fuss after Mr. Gonzalez makes his announcement…

"Look, mister… We're all very thankful for the watchful eye you kept over Katie during her stay in the hospital, but I'm putting my foot down on this!" Aunt Karen spits, a baleful look in her eye. "This is a private family matter, and as much as you and your wife would probably like to be, you're not Kate's family." As she speaks, her high priced Prada shoes are tap-tap-tapping against the hardwood floor.

The corner of Kate's eye twitches a little at the repetitive sound, the image of blood dripping on a glass stained concrete road playing over and over again in her head.

Mrs. Gonzalez glares at Aunt Karen. Billy whines a little in her arms.

"Besides," Uncle Philip pipes up in his sister's defense, his hands laced properly over his folded knees. "My sister's doing you a favor here by ending this nonsense right now…You don't want this girl mucking up your pristine home, Ranger." He leans back in his chair, peering at her. "She's always been trouble like that…" Uncle Phillip adds primly, an accusing bite to his tone that makes Kate feel like she's five years old, spilling Kool-Aid on his carpet all over again.

She can tell by the way he looks at her now that he blames her for so much more than spilled Kool-Aid… He blames her for the death of his brother, and she can't really fault him for that. She blames herself too.

Mr. Gonzalez raises his eyebrow. "I think I can handle it," he says confidently.

"Then take her," Aunt LeAnn sighs, sounding bored.

"What?!" Aunt Karen exclaims a moment later, her eyes wide. "LeAnn, you can't be—"

One hard look from Aunt LeAnn shuts her up. "Do you want to take care of her?"

"No!" Aunt Karen barks back, her expression outraged that Aunt LeAnn would ask such an outrageous question. Kate has to temper the urge to roll her eyes at her aunt.

"Then shut your big fat trap, Karen!" LeAnn hisses, her diamond-studded bangle bracelet jangling against her wrist, an accompaniment with her annoyance. Uncle Phillip raises his eyebrow questioningly at his wife's outburst. She chooses to ignore him.

"I think your family might be the best thing for Kate," Uncle Tex says softly, his posture stiff but his hat tipped slightly over his brow in a sign of respect for their state's Ranger.

Aunt Mary nods her head in agreement with her husband, "I think you'd take real good care of her," she says sweetly, her smile for Kate light and pure, and Kate can't help but smile warmly right back. Two people who have never met her a day in their lives are standing up for her… fighting for her in their own way, and she can't help but be a bit warmed in her heart by that.

It's more than the people right in front of her are doing… Hell, it's more than her own Daddy had ever done.

"I agree whole-heartily with my husband on why we choose not to let our darling niece into our home," LeAnn injects a minute later, her composure once again intact. "We have our own child to think about, but I don't want to see her go into one of those God awful foster homes either. She may be a handful, but she's unbearably naïve and a place like that will ruin her."

Aunt Karen continues to glare at everything and anything as Uncle Phillip sits back in his chair, his face carefully expressionless.

"Fine," Aunt Karen huffs when the tension that descended after Aunt LeAnn's statement began to stretch into uncomfortable territory. The continuing glare in her eye from earlier became razor sharp, as through wanting to cut through flesh and bone, but reined in by the desire to be done with the matter at hand. "Do whatever you like with her, _Ranger_ _Gonzalez_ …" Aunt Karen finishes, grabbing her Dior purse and stomping out of the room.

Her heels once again tap-tap-tap against the floor in a maddening rhythm as the heavy oak double doors slams behind her. She and her equally annoying heels fade away into the distance without even a goodbye.

"Good luck, Ranger Gonzalez…" Uncle Phillip says leisurely a few minutes after his younger sister's departure, arms now folded behind his head, his expression still unreadable. "You're going to need it…"

 **TBC...**


	4. Chapter 4

4

"I know that this is probably nothing like what you're used to," Mr. Gonzalez— _Freddie, she has to remember to call him that from now on_ — says sheepishly to her a few hours later, his free hand fussing a little with one of the uneven corners in her new bedspread. His other shoulder weightlessly lugging around the only suitcase of possessions that Kate has with her now— _meager, but significant belongings that sadly chronicle how little really actually means much to her in this world_ —"But it's a lot better than most places, I guess…" He trails off uncertainly, his face an unreadable mask as he points to the old futon tucked in the far-end of the bedroom that been bought second-hand to be her new bed weeks ago.

"Only temporary," Freddie says pointedly, his cheeks flushed as his wife playfully rolls her eyes at his unnecessary blundering. "You only have to use it until my next free day off work, and then I can take us all out to shop properly for a new bed set…"

"I'm sure it'll be fine." Kate reassures him sweetly, a small smile tugging at her lips for the second time today. "I have a bed and four walls. What more can a girl ask for?" she jokes lamely, trying to take the suitcase from Freddie's hand, but he just waves her off with a stern shake of his head, leading her and her luggage over to the new dresser drawers that were lined up against the wall next to the baby's crib.

"I'm also sorry that you have to share a room with Billie…"

Kate actually joins his wife in rolling her eyes this time.

"Freddie, stop worrying!" Mrs. Gonzalez scolds light-heartily, bouncing a sleepy Billie in her arms. "I'm sorry for my husband's behavior," she says to Kate, a fine line of fond exasperation wrinkling the beautiful contours of her perfectly shaped face. "He's just been obsessing all week over whether or not you would like your new room…" she finishes with an apologetic sigh leaving her thin lips, and all Kate can do is just shrug her shoulder playfully at the apology, already having forgiven Mr. Gonzalez's silly theatrics…

Because, in all actuality, there isn't much of anything to really forgive him for. She knows Freddie well enough now to understand that he's worried that their home will be just another place where Kate will feel like a fish out of water… a burden to suffer through… but what he doesn't understand is that he's already made her feel more at home in a short span of time than she's ever felt in her entire lifetime.

The great pains that two strangers— _though they were loving, nice strangers_ — are taking to make sure that a broken-beyond-repair soul like hers feels at _home_ within their new and growing family is so much more than she could have ever hoped for, more than what she would ever have gotten if she had been forced to move in with one of her relatives. Her welcome to any one of their homes would have been a nice, damp hole in the wall and a firm slap to the face.

Kate shakes her head vigorously, forcing herself to turn away any unwanted thoughts of her family. Those unpleasant feelings have no frame here in such a warm place. She will no longer allow them to fill a space in her body, to burrow and fester deep within her heart… to summon that untamed monster, that vile demon that her father always tried so hard to beat the living heck out of her with the back-hand side of a battered Bible _— "Now now, Katie-cakes… What have we learned?"—_ No, she wouldn't let them rule her.

She _would_ allow that sharp sense of enormous gratitude that she felt for Mr. and Mrs. Gonzalez to take all those foul thoughts from her mind from now on, to neuter that warm and heartbreakingly sentimental feeling and let it grow… to let it coil around the base of her beating heart, like a _snake_ slithering its way through the rotten parts of her being and expand its presence in the pit of her stomach, unbridled and a touch overwhelming… slowly draining the very life out of her with that strong and barely inescapable sheer amount of happiness and belonging at being invited— _at being welcomed_ — whole-heartedly into the Gonzalez's' lovely home…

"So," Mr. Gonzalez says, his soothing voice breaking Kate away from her erratic train of thought. His olive tanned face still wound tightly with that ridiculous fear of rejection that he had been wearing like a second layer of skin ever since they had walked into the baby's room. His brow arched as the silence in the room continued to stretch on around them, "What do you think?" He asks her a moment later, his usually firm voice still shaking with nerves and worry.

Kate blinks rapidly at his question, her focus slowly coming back onto the room around her. Her mind, body, and soul exhausted, wandering away from her as her gaze keeps locking onto the thrift-shop bought futon tucked into the far corner of the room. Her bright eyes misted with the barely contained well of unshed tears that had been slowly building beneath the back of her eyelids ever since Ranger Gonzalez and his wife had come bursting through the heavy, double doors of the lawyer's office, their loving and familiar— _more familiar and loving than her own family's_ — faces set and determined in the wake of her Aunts' and Uncles' disapproving stares… a deep and fierce sense of defiance shining in their eyes, marking their faces, charging the already unbearable atmosphere of the room.

Kate had known in that moment what their faces had said, what their energy had meant and provoked — _why her combative Aunt Karen hadn't even tried digging her claws into them and tearing them apart… why all her Uncle Phillip had done was whisper a few warning words before kissing her roughly on the cheek and walking out of her life the way Aunt Karen had, never even looking back at her—_ she had seen that they would have fought tooth and nail for her to come home with them… for her to have the _chance_ to build a permanent place in the heart of their small family…

"I think that we'll be alright," she answers back, her voice broken and cracked, but sure. Her eyes still dancing wildly around the small room in slight wonder, the fragile strings directly connected to her heart beginning to stir and tug with an almost long forgotten feeling that she had thought had died right along with fading look in her mother's eye as her neck remained twisted and devoid of oxygen, her brother's mangled face pressed against the blood stained pavement, and her father's harsh and ragged last words whispered in her ear like a cruel prayer…

"I think _I_ can be okay…" She chokes out, the words a bittersweet touch, a sharp relief as the truth of her words wash over her. She actually, on some level, believes what she was saying… she'd never be completely whole again— _maybe she never really was to begin with_ —not now, not ever… But, eventually she can learn to live within her splintered being, to trudge on through the pain, through the sin and lies and heartache… because as long as love filled her heart— _pure and unattached and unadulterated_ —she'll be okay… she'll survive.

And that has to be enough, because of all she has to look forward to now. Freddie smiles at her, shy and bright like the sun. His dark eyes looking upon her sincere like a confession, and Kate just smiles back, the tears that she has been holding back for so long finally flowing down her porcelain cheeks in wet, hot tracks… like God has finally come to wash away her sins.

 **TBC...**


End file.
